Pugged Kara’s like a box of chocolates….

I know I have whinged and whined about Kara pugs before, well, I guess not so much about the quality of the puggerswe pick up, although generally there is a big gap between the damage done by the regulars and that done by the puggers.

My biggest issue has always been that, with one 5-6 hour shot per week at Kara, the LF1-2-3M from 8.30 – 10.30 can be a real drag. Usually if we do fill the party it is with badge gatherers hoping for a 1-shot run of the place in 3 hours, or the dregs of toondom, because we are about to give up.

Well this Friday, it looked like our luck had changed. We had a group ready to go at 9pm – in fact it was myself and another regular that were last into the raid group. One of the puggers was calling us out on whether our gear was up to scratch (which we were confident it was, so started to get a bit silly, asking questions like, is +300 and 2% spell hit OK?).

I mean, we had our usual contingent of Bear Tank (You think Bear Butts are big, just try looking at it from a Gnome’s perspective), Tankadin-in-Training off-tank, Fury Warrior-come “I will offtank too at the drop of a shield”, Sexy Rogue and one hell’va Gnome fire mage. We picked up a Hot Hunter, Resto Shaman, Shadow Priest and a Warlock.. we never get a Warlock or Shaman… It looked like we were in for an awesome night in Kara!

You know what… it was… err for a while anyway.

We left Attuman wondering what the number plate was of that bus that had just steamrolled him and his trash.

The only death during Moroes was my own, but it appears our Tree Druid now has a “Heal GnomeaDeadAgain” hotkey, cause I was up again before the tank had recovered from Moroe’s blind – andI still topped the damage meter for the fight.

On the way to Maiden, I finally picked up the pattern: Soulcloth Vest. Don’t know what I will use it for, but hey, I got it.

Maiden-schmaiden.. She nearly didn’t get her 2nd repentance off… Mind you she took a while to pull it out of the hat. Most likely if I had Ice blocked out of her 1st repentance rather than her second we wouldn’t have dealt with the 2nd.

Off to Opera… The Crone & her posse. I had a ball. As usual tanked Strawman – told everyone to leave him alone this time and focus on the rest… but our Pally had to do some AoE near by and ruin my perfect kill ;-)

I was caught in the Tornado immediately on the Crone’s appearance, and again a little bit later… but I had a ball, chucked on featherfall and just surfed the winds. Topped the DPS.. and nearly had Strawman all to myself.

So far 1.5 hours down.. loving this… cruising….

Off to the back part, and we are excited that we have the Shaman for fearwards, so straight to Nightbane, who went down like the big bag of doggy treats it is. Still topping the meter, oh joy oh joy.

Curator… down… easy… love it, but what’s that, did I just see a wheel go flying by… ohnoes, the wheels are falling off the cart.

I don’t know what it is about the Curator, but it always seems to be the point where people get called away by their Mum’s (sorry bit harsh). Anyway, the Resto Shaman, who has been living up to his early bragging, DCs, and doesn’t come back. I want to come back to this later, but suffice to say we had to go through that pain of tracking down another raid member.

In the end, our rogue (normally #1 on damage meters, tonight relegated to #2 – mind you there is only 2% separating 1st & 3rd) logs and comes back as his Holy Priest.

Illhoof = party time… was fun to do this without trying to be the Imp tank. Even the demon chains were executed perfectly, including getting this weak little Gnome out once.

Shade of Aran, once the boss I hated to love (cause everyone else hates him.. so I should too right), now the boss I love to hate (some bad sessions with Aran recently) treats us to a spanking 1st time around. We get him on the 2nd attempt… no thanks to me (well maybe a little), as I am now floor furnishing.

Then this amazing thing happens… but I am going to proceed it by a little story I heard last night as well.

You know that Mongoose enchant, the one that supposedly drops of Moroes… never seen it. One of mates has seen it once. I was watching chat when I see this story about how a guy on his 1st run in Kara gets the drop… /cry

Anyway, the miraculous happens and Formula: Enchant Weapon – Sunfire drops. As an Enchanting fire mage I have lost sleep about this formula… but there it is.. oh joy, oh joy. That’s when someone on TS points out that the Warlock is asking if anyone else is a Enchanter. I had missed this raid chat, cause I was still scraping my physical form off the floor.

Of course I respond.. “yeah I am, so we will roll for it”, and follow it up with, “but I really want it :-)”

You are going to have to pick me up from the floor again, because the response from the Warlock was… “OK you have it” (or words to that effect).

So now I know the enchant, and will only have to sacrifice a few Tauren babies to get the mats… yay!

Chess… does it ever end any other way.. victory.

Prince… does it ever end any other way… defeat.

Ok you will have noticed the detailed story peters out there.. that’s cause I have really touched on the two points I wanted to get to.. but had to ramble on about how I topped the meters for maybe only the 2nd time…

Speaking of which…

Whole Night…

Just the bosses…

OK, so topics for today’s discussion.

1) Leaving a raid party.
OK, so I don’t know for sure whether the Shaman was just looking for a way out of the raid party by DC’ing, but if so, I would just like to say that I would always prefer 10 lines of abuse and a /raid quit, than a random DC.

Why? I will get over the abuse and start looking for a new raid member immediately. But I will always allow a grace period for a DC. Which means that I probably wont have a replacement for 20 minutes minimum. Spare me the grace period… always…

2) Random acts of Kindness.
OK, I am going to out the Warlock. I said I would, not that they would have any idea what I meant.
The Warlock was: Kahle, from Aman’Thul. You made my night.. and I stand by my promise, that if I ever pick up the shadowy version of the enchant, I will enchant for free, including mats as a thankyou!